The Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) has been doing an amazing job of fan engagement but on of the things I have enjoyed most is how they make time at every game (at least in Ottawa) to highlight the contributions of women who have helped make space for women and girls to play sports.
At a recent game, it was Abby Hoffmann. Abby started playing hockey on a boy’s team in the 1950s in Toronto. She was kicked off the team when I was discovered she was a girl; her case went all the way to the Ontario Supreme Court and got international media coverage. Sadly, she lost.
That didn’t stop her though. She took up competitive swimming and then became a world-class middle distance runner. I remember watching her at her fourth Olympics (Montreal, 1976), where she was the flag-bearer.
After her athletic career ended, she turned to public service, becoming the first woman Director General of Sport Canada, the first Canadian woman elected as an executive of the Canadian Olympic Committee, and a supporter of the Canadian women’s national hockey championship, which ran from 1982 to 2007. Its prize was Abbey Hoffman Cup, now house in the Hockey Hall of Fame. She is a member of both the Order of Canada and has been inducted into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
It was a thrill to see Abby in person at a game, after following her career for so many years.